“You ought to trade him off and make a good thing.”
“Don’t reckon I want to trade right away. I ’low after plantin’ I’m goin’ to ride round a bit. Thar’s a heap o’ things a feller can learn by travellin’ around. You know that.”
“I suppose so. Tell you what, Angus; I’ve got to go to Williamsburg next week. Let’s go together. I’ve never been there. It’s the capital of the Old Dominion and, when the Burgesses are in session, one can see more of the aristocracy in Williamsburg than in any other place. Besides, the famous William and Mary College is there. You know many of our greatest men went there, the Byrds, the Lees and Randolphs, and Thomas Jefferson, he was a student there. I’ve heard that he would like to have a college right here in Charlottesville run according to a plan of his own. I’ll wager if he wants it he’ll get it if he lives. Yes, we’ll ride down there and have a fine time.”
“That we will fer sure, if we go. Reckon I can fix it. Think we can see Patrick Henry? I want to see him. They do say he can talk the birds right out o’ the trees.”
“You never heard anything like it. He isn’t much to look at, but when he speaks he can make the hair in the back of your neck stand out straight like the ruff of a cockerel in a fight.”
“I hear the fellers talkin’. They’d march right to Joppa if he’d lead ’em.”
“Don’t believe he’s much of a soldier, but he surely is an orator.”
Angus rode home whistling.
That evening Mrs. Allison received the following letter in which the reader may be interested, as was Rodney: